In 3 years, 8000 ve­hi­cles booked for evad­ing road tax

NAVI MUM­BAI: The Re­gional Trans­port Of­fice (RTO) Vashi has been track­ing down all out­sta­tion ve­hi­cle own­ers who have not paid road tax.

The ve­hi­cles caught in the drive are those which are reg­is­tered in states other than Maharashtra and are op­er­at­ing in the city with­out pay­ing the tax.

Over 8,000 ve­hi­cles have been booked in the last three years for not pay­ing road tax. Taxes amount­ing to Rs2 crore were re­cov­ered.

As per the records, a to­tal of 2,643 such ve­hi­cles have been caught in 2015- 16 till Jan­uary. For this, a to­tal amount of Rs18.13 lakh fine and Rs60.63 lakh have been re­cov­ered in taxes.

While in 2014-15, a to­tal of 3,416 ve­hi­cles were caught which paid a fine of Rs 26.56 lakh and Rs 89.10 lakh tax. In 2013-14, a to­tal of 2,825 such ve­hi­cles were booked which re­sulted in a fine col­lec­tion of Rs19.65 lakh and a tax re­cov­ery of Rs58.07 lakh.

Of­fi­cials said the data col­lected is a to­tal of all the ve­hi­cles that are caught and hence there is no bi­fur­ca­tion of the ve­hi­cles that are booked.

“As per the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles Act, own­ers of ve­hi­cles which are reg­is­tered in other states have to pay road tax to Maharashtra if they are bring­ing it for use for more than 14 days. Mostly, the buses which con­sti­tute of 30-40 per­cent are the ma­jor vi­o­la­tors of this rule,” said San­jay Dhaygude, deputy re­gional trans­port of­fi­cer, RTO Vashi.

The road tax that is paid is de­cided on the age of the ve­hi­cles along with which other cri­te­ria like the per­mit of the ve­hi­cle, seat­ing ca­pac­ity, com­pany or pri­vate ve­hi­cles etc are con­sid­ered while cal­cu­lat­ing the tax.

Of­fi­cials said most peo­ple tend to save on road tax by not reg­is­ter­ing their ve­hi­cles when they move in from other states. “Most of the peo­ple avoid get­ting their ve­hi­cles reg­is­tered here to avoid pay­ing the tax,” said the RTO of­fi­cial.